Hold private schools accountable: My Word

James P. Kelly and Benjamin Scafidi's column, "Standardized testing would threaten private-school appeal," in Saturday's Sentinel, could have been titled, "Standardized testing would threaten private-school profits."

Kelly and Scafidi contend that parents who participate in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program do so because they value so little standardized tests such as the FCAT, which all public-school students must take. Ominously, for the private schools that garner a substantial part of their income from the scholarship program, State Senate President Don Gaetz now advocates requiring children from private schools that receive tuition money from state tax dollars to also take the FCAT.

It is difficult to understand why private schools should be so concerned about their students having to take the same standardized tests as public-school students. After all, private schools can choose their students. They can reject students who have cognitive, physical or emotional learning disabilities, and they are not required to provide special curricula for populations such as gifted students, as the public-school system must do. Such circumstances must make private schools more efficient and leaner.

If, as Kelly and Scafidi write, private schools provide better learning environments, smaller class sizes and "more individualized attention" than public schools do, surely the students who matriculate in such an environment would score higher on standardized tests. This should make the private-school environment even more attractive to more potential customers.

So why the resistance to asking private schools that accept tax dollars as tuition to submit to standardized testing? Kelly and Scafidi worry that "teaching to the test" would "threaten the very freedoms that have made private schools so attractive to parents." If that logic is sound, one obvious outcome would be that the differences between public and private schools — "school choice" — would be diminished. And that might lead to fewer parents opting to use the state scholarship program to send their children to private schools, resulting in lower profits for those organizations.

Whether standardized tests are effective at measuring learning remains controversial. But it is difficult to accept the premise that a private school that accepts state tax monies as tuition should not be required to meet the same testing standards as public schools. Taxpayers fund both public and private schools in Florida, and they deserve accountability from each.